Who Has The Advantage Between Utah-UCLA Heading Into Saturday?

Saturday night's matchup between Utah-UCLA will put one team beginning its season and another with a game already under its belt — the question remains though, who does that benefit more?

Entering Saturday night's Utah-UCLA matchup, one team will go in with a massive advantage. The question remains though, which team has that advantage?

On one end is UCLA, a team who's coming off a 48-42 loss to Colorado in the first game of the season. Despite the loss, the Bruins have played this season so that can be seen as a huge benefit, especially considering a lot of coaches believe you see the most progress from Week 1 to Week 2.

UCLA has been able to play and knows what it needs to work on, thus can make the necessary adjustments needed. But that also means that the Utes have actual game film this season they can breakdown.

On the other end is Utah, who doesn't have the benefit of playing a game this season and will open things up on the road late Saturday night. So while Utah can expect some growing pains for sure, they do have the added benefit on knowing what to expect from the Bruins. 

According to Utah head coach Kyle Whittingham, neither team really has much of an advantage considering there are both advantages and disadvantages to however you choose to look at things.

"There's arguments to be made on both sides. ... Typically the old adage is you make the most improvement between games one and two so they've got that on their side," Whittingham said. "As far as us, we have a full tape to watch, study and analyze, where as they have nothing on us this year. Who knows, advantages on both ways depending on how you look at that."

While Whittingham said that you often make the most improvements between games one and two, I'm leaning towards the Utes having the advantage in this one. The main reason being is that they enter this season with so much unknown that game-planning will be crucial in this one.

For the Utes, it's unknown who will be starting at quarterback — while most believe it will come down to either Jake Bentley or Cameron Rising. There's no game film on Rising and Bentley's game film is two years old from when he was at South Carolina in a totally different offense. 

Utah also have a multitude of running backs, all with different skillsets that can be difficult to game plan for. On top of that, the Utes are breaking in a brand new defense that will be young and inexperienced — which means that defensive coordinator Morgan Scalley will have to get creative when it comes to blitzes and coverage.

Also, Whittingham and his staff are among the best in the nation when it comes to game-planning for opponents. So that sole fact that they have film from this season that they can actually breakdown and plan for is a massive advantage.

Either way, the Utes will find themselves having advantages and disadvantages come Saturday night. But first things first, they have to actually make it to the field to play.

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